SIMPLY ADD WATER

Abstract

Climate change such as sea level rise has captured popular fear and imagination such as prospect of whole countries disappearing beneath the seas. Authors and scientists are seeing climate change as a crisis that requires immediate actions from the government. On the other hand, there are others who flatly deny the existence of climate change. In order to study the validity of climate change and sea level rise, the viewpoints of the main protagonists involved in both pro and anti climate change will be analyzed. The focus will be mainly on rise of sea level, which is one of the consequences arising from climate change. When the sea level rises, low lying coastal areas are expected to experience increased permanent inundation, beach erosion and salt intrusion. Despite being a low lying city, faced with the possible threat of sea level rise, Singapore is still developing the infrastructure intensively on its coastline, lacking the sense of crisis. An estimation of 3% of Singapore’s total area will be inundated and 21.9% will be affected by temporary storm surges. The figures obtained are based on the mappings of Singapore till the year 2100. Having solved flooding problems through engineering for decades, Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew said that no amount of engineering can prevent floods, causing much uproar among its people, especially the engineers. It leads on to probing the current engineering strategy and its relevance to Singapore in the future, in relations to the idea of sense of crisis.